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Batlle Berres was a journalist and prominent member of the Uruguayan Colorado Party. He was selected — in hindsight, with far-reaching effect — to serve as Vice Presidential running-mate for Luis Tomás Berreta.

Within the Colorado Party, he is now widely acknowledged for being the founder of the political branch known as Neo-Batllism. In this first period of Presidential office, the Vice President of Uruguay was Alfeo Brum.

The great great grandson of Catalan settlers from Sitges, Spain, he was the son of another political figure, Luis Batlle y Ordóñez, brother of ex president José Batlle. His mother, Petrona Berres, was of Irish descent and died when he was still a small child. Then, his father remarried but died soon after, in 1908. As a result, he went to live with his uncle and his cousins in a farm in the suburbs of Montevideo.